"Right fine, sir," Rodgers told him. "Kinder on th' tongue than 'Miss Taylor,' nor half as raw. Doesn't pucker ya like a hock or Rhenish. Aye, I'd take a case'r two aboard, as well, sir."
Not all in one sitting, Lewrie thought with a secret grin. Rodgers was born with a hollow leg, holds his guzzle better'n any I ever did see, but Lord… what a packet he can stow away, and give no sign of!
"Perhaps the nicest bit come off from shore, sirs," Charlton said, turning moody and a touch fretful. "Sweeter by far than what I read in your report, Captain Rodgers, of what you and Lewrie learned of the poor state of Venetian defences, for certain. I would never have expected to see them let things get in such a shoddy fix."
" 'Lo, how the mighty are fallen,' sir, aye. Something like that," Commander Fillebrowne cited with a commiserating shrug and head-shake.
"Something very much like that, sir." Captain Thomas Charlton grimaced. "S'pose it'd do no good to alert the Venetian senate to what venal situation obtains on Corfu, do you? Do no good to… tattle?"
"I doubt the Venetians would appreciate it, sir," Lewrie replied when it looked like no one else would rise to it. "There must be hundreds of their nobility profiting from some other corruption already. To alert 'em would cause just enough grief for them to resent us."
"And," Fillebrowne pointed out with a raised finger, "since the provveditore down yonder, and the others, are nobles recorded in their so-called Golden 'Stud' Book, they're untouchable."
"Don't know, sir," Rodgers countered with a sly look. "Venice is known f r cleanin' up scandals quiet-like. Th' odd body dumped in a canal, anonymous stabbin's in the streets by hired bravos… stranglin' th' overgreedy with a silk noose in prison. Beats th' cost of a trial-an' th' public embarrassment-all hollow."
"Onliest thing is, Captain Rodgers"-Charlton brightened, wryly amused-"they've a tradition of killing the messenger who brings 'em the bad tidings, too!"
"Well, there is that, sir," Rodgers allowed with a wry grin.
Charlton set his glass on the dining table and smoothed down his unruly, wiry grey hair-hair, Lewrie noted, that had been more pepper than salt just scant months before they'd sailed for the Adriatic.
"I was ashore, gentlemen," Charlton announced, folding his hands in his lap and working his lips from side to side, as if trying to find a comfortable fit. "There are two items of note. One merely bad-and one utterly appalling. S'pose we should get the worst out of the way first. That old acquaintance of yours, Lewrie, this Bonaparte-"
"Oh, aye, did Latin verbs together, sir," Lewrie sniggered.
Charlton gave him a beetle-browed glare, which shushed him, and his too-quick wit, much like an irate tutor.
"Seems he's given the Austrians more woes, according to what the good Major Simpson told me," Charlton went on, after a last glare, for assurance that Lewrie was properly chastened and would make no more amusing comments. "Crossed the Po River into Lombardy round the beginning of May. Ignored their fortress-city of Pavia and found an unguarded stretch where no one ever would have thought to look for him-at Piacenza. Fillebrowne, you're still our expert on Italian geography. Do you unroll that map for us, sir… there's a good fellow? Ah, just here… far east of Pavia. Marched or flew, I don't know which would be harder to credit, from Turin in bare days." Charlton looked gloomy, a hand waving over the general vicinity, once Fillebrowne had dutifully displayed the map and began to anchor it with glasses.
"Marshal Beaulieu, I'm told, had planned to entrench behind the Ti-cino River and the Po, anchoring things with Pavia, but with the French threatening him from the east and Milan wide open, the Austrian Army was forced to retreat. Abandoning Pavia, and part of its garrison-and all the supplies gathered there-same as happened before, when they had to abandon Alessandria," Charlton related with a disappointed sniff. "Now, here… the Adda River, at a place called Lodi… Bonaparte caught up with Beaulieu's rear guard. Fought his way across the narrow bridge under heavy fire and cut up the rear guard. Rather handily, I must say… or so Major Simpson related it to me."
"And that, rather reluctantly, I should expect, sir," Fillebrowne quipped with a derisory smirk.
"Quite, sir," Charlton snapped, turning his frosty humour on Fillebrowne for a welcome change, and glaring his smarminess to scorn. "I am also told-reluctantly or not, Commander Fillebrowne-that Milan fell to French troops about the middle of the month… not five days after this battle at Lodi, and Marshal Beaulieu and his Austrians- what's left of'em, mind-have scuttled back to Mantua to regroup. And what that means, sirs, is that the western half of Lombardy is now lost!"
"But, that's…" Captain Rodgers spluttered in disbelief. "Why, that's nigh impossible, sir! To move so quick 'gainst such a force. Mean t'say, surely-"
"And that was just the doings in the merry month of May, sirs," Charlton snapped, as if he were taking cruel amusement from the hapless antics of their allies-or enjoyed shredding Rodgers's last illusions concerning the invincible Austrian Army. Lewrie, though, thought their squadron commanders bile was more the instinctive variety; that utter disgust for the doings of "soldiers," who were little better than gaudy "jingle-brains," idle fops and boasting coxcombs.
"Now, here's the real salt in the wounds, sirs," Captain Charlton sighed, recovering his glass of wine and taking a sip with a shrug. It seemed to calm him. "I am also told that Lewrie s old compatriot…"
Damme, I wish he'd stop saying that! Alan rankled to himself.
"… has come down as far as Parma, to the south." Charlton hunched forward over the map. "This past month, he's taken Modena, then Bologna. Marched into the northernmost Papal States, took on the Papal Army-eighteen thousand or so-still runnin', I'm assured, all the way back to Rome! Just scattered 'em. Then he turned on Tuscany. Took Ferrara and Florence, their capital city. Sent troops to Porto Es-pecia, and… Leghorn."
"Good God!" It was Lewrie s turn to gasp in disbelief. "Sir, if he has Leghorn, then-well, 'cept for Naples, do they not panic!-we haven't a friendly port left anywhere in Italy which would base or victual the fleet! Well, Gibraltar, but that's a long slog…"
"Exactly, Commander Lewrie," Charlton grunted, taking another tidy sip of wine. "Got it in one. No more repairs or naval stores to be had from them… no more wine, pasta or fresh meat on the hoof…"
"Which means the fleet must live on salt-meats," Rodgers discovered. "No way to prevent scurvy, sooner or later. I'd suppose no more onions or such, either, 'cept what little grows on Corsica. Naples-"
"We know how shaky was Naples' allegiance to the Coalition ere this," Charlton responded with a grimace. "The Pope and Tuscany… so the rumour goes… have dug deep into their treasuries and their art collections to buy off the French. Better to be a dirt-poor but still independent nation than a starving, ravaged and conquered one, hmm? I'd expect Naples to do likewise, weak as they are. And that, soon."
"Their art collections, sir?" Fillebrowne gawped, looking ashen.
"May they not fulfill the French tribute in gold or silver, sir," Charlton told him. "Valuable paintings, statues and such could make up the difference. There was talk ashore that this Bonaparte has explicit orders to gather specific works of art from palaces and museums, as well as solid specie. Paris has a complete list of required items by name."